


A Glass, a Coin and a Stranger Walk Into a Bar.

by FeliciaAmelloides



Series: A Oneshot a Day... [73]
Category: nonfandom
Genre: Advice, Existential Crisis, Life Wisdom at a Bar, People Are Never Quite What They Seem To Be, drunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 12:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13975434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeliciaAmelloides/pseuds/FeliciaAmelloides
Summary: 'He wanted to explain how people were never quite what you thought they were.'Okay, that's a Lord of the Flies quote. But seriously.A small tale about something which happened many years ago, to a man in a bar with no hope left. It all started when a stranger called Gary approached him at the table with a drink in hand, and asked him a few questions...





	A Glass, a Coin and a Stranger Walk Into a Bar.

Someone once told me that the most important conversations you have in your life on the ones held at midnight in a bar while you're both drunk off your asses.

I didn't believe them until it happened to me.

My girlfriend of nine years had left me for a young woman (turns out she'd never liked men in the first place), my cat died and my parents gave my college fund to my sister all on the same day. So I did the only thing a guy living on $5 a week with no hope for survival in the outside world could do:

I gathered all of my money together and blew it all on drink.

So it was midnight, I was shit-faced, and suddenly this guy came up to me. He looked like a hipster with his long grey hair and stubble as well as the thin wire framed glasses perched over his grey eyes. It was a rare colour, and oddly captivating, as if he knew more than everyone else around him. Despite the colour of his hair, he looked fairly young- in his late twenties, perhaps? That's all I remember about him appearance-wise.

"You look like shit." Was the first thing he said to me. I nodded with a weak laugh. His voice was warm and comforting, gravelly with an odd hint of nostalgia that made me feel extremely sober and even more vulnerable to his scrutiny.

"Tell me something I don't know." I replied, words slurring and getting jumbled up in my mind. The guy took the barstool next to me. He had a glass, but I didn't recognise the drink inside it in my drunken, hazy state.

"My name's Gary." He said calmly. It took me a moment too long to realise that he was indeed 'telling me something I didn't know'.

"Gary, huh? That's a pretty shit name." No idea why I said that. Gary's a nice name. Nicest one I'd ever heard anyway. The guy called Gary didn't really seem to care though. That probably wasn't even his real name. I lied about mine as I introduced myself in the next sentence.

"Thanks. Yours too." Huh. He was fairly blunt. I nodded, having no idea what I was supposed to say. I was too drunk to be able to form coherent sentences without some form of provocation first. And this guy didn't seem to be too inspirational. Well at first, anyway.

"So what seems to be the problem?" Gary asked when I failed to say anything. He sounded like a therapist.

"What isn't the problem? My girlfriend's gay and has been cheating on me for three years with six different women, my cat is dead, my parents hate me and I have no cash whatsoever." Tears threatened to form in my eyes as I finally said my worries aloud. Gary didn't judge.

"Ah. I thought you'd ask why I was asking you a question like that." Arsehole. I could ask him whatever damn question I wanted. Hold on... I was answering the question, wasn't I? Pretty sure my thoughts were something like that at the time.

"I'm not stupid. Everyone drinks to forget or some bullshit like that." The noises in the bar seemed far away. I wondered if I'd black out. I had to force myself to care about that. Gary just frowned, tapping his chin thoughtfully like an old sage.

"But you haven't forgotten." He answered finally, after a long, pensive pause. I nodded again.

"I haven't drank enough yet." With that, I took another huge swig of my flat beer. Gary didn't touch his drink. I wasn't one to judge though. Not when I was this wasted anyway.

"And what about in the morning? Will your girlfriend come back to you? Will your cat be alive? Are your parents going to give you your money?" Now that I think about it, I didn't explain all of that last part to Gary. Weirdly enough, he somehow knew. I sighed, knowing that he was right but refusing to admit it.

"No. None of those things will happen." My beer suddenly didn't seem so comforting.

"Then tell me. What will happen?" Weird question. I persevered.

"I'll be hungover. I'll cry. I'll get evicted from my house. I'll cry some more. I'll drink. It'll start again, just without the evicted part because I'll be sleeping on the streets anyway." I felt cold. Gary just smiled.

"Yes, perhaps those things will happen. But what about afterwards?"

"Huh?" I thought allowed. What did he mean, afterwards? There was no _afterwards_. That was it.

"When your hangover subsides, you'll feel better. When you feel better, you'll move around. When you're moving, you'll try to save your home. Maybe then you'll get a job. This bar is understaffed and always wanting employees. You're a regular. I can tell. They'd welcome you here easily, so long as you keep buying from them from time to time. Then you'll have money. With money you can get a home, even if it's not the one you started with. You'll get a new girlfriend, if you want one. Maybe you'll meet her at work. A customer, perhaps? She'll work. You'll both have more money together. Then you'll have a home, money and a girlfriend. Soon you'll have a child. Name her after your cat. Then you'll have everything back again." Speech finished, Gary finally took a sip from his glass as I stared at him in awe.

"And how do you expect me to believe any of that?" I asked, irritated at his boundless optimism in a world so empty of hope. At that question, Gary met my gaze and smiled knowingly.

"Because everyone loses. Nothing stays the same. But the world is a big and beautiful place, full of opportunities and chance encounters. Everything goes to shit. A lot. Hell, most of your life will be absolute shit, but when you die you'll only see it for the good things. And that's because you don't always lose every battle. Some of them, you'll win. Each and every victory is something to be cherished. And when you lose, if you stay standing then you can win it all back. Because who says you can't? Life isn't just loss. Everything changes. High to low, low to high. A wave. A flow. A river." Those were Gary's inspirational words. I didn't understand them at the time, scoffing and calling him a cheesy old hippie, but now, imbued with the wisdom of many decades more, I do.

What Gary was trying to tell me was that if things go to shit, there's no point in trying to forget about it or accept defeat. While you're alive, there's a life inside of you worth living, and it's better to recognise that things change and you can get better than relent to your losses. 

When Gary left me that night, he parted from me with one final message:

"You see, life is a two-sided coin. You flip it, and land on suffering. Flip it again, you land on a blessing. I hope you don't stop flipping that coin just because you lost. Everything is there for a reason. Just wait." And with that, he was gone.

I thought long and hard about what Gary said to me that night for many weeks afterwards. He told me what my future would be once my mind was clearer and my spirit was renewed. But if I had never met Gary, I never would have regained my spirit. I would have stopped flipping the coin because I lost. 

So I thank you, Gary, whoever the hell you really are, for telling me to flip again. 

Because this time, I won.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler- he gets a happy ending. Because he doesn't give up. Or, at least happier things come to him. He loses quite a lot too.
> 
> Prompt-
> 
> Gary is a name commonly used for a human version of God that people can actually sympathise with. I'm not religious, but I tried to think like a theist to write this. I hope my words were inspirational! It took me a long time to think of something which wasn't too stupid. 
> 
> Original Number- 8.


End file.
